


Darkest Before the Dawn

by CapricornBookworm



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Confessions, Deep Conversations, Established Relationship, Implied Sexual Content, Life After Hogwarts, M/M, Mentions of Death, Mentions of Violence, Morning Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-24
Updated: 2018-05-24
Packaged: 2019-05-13 03:29:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14741199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CapricornBookworm/pseuds/CapricornBookworm
Summary: Harry and Draco talk about their regrets one morning after sex.





	Darkest Before the Dawn

**Author's Note:**

> Character deaths mentioned are cannon. Mentions of violence are brief and non-graphic.

****

_Regrets collect like old friends_  
_Here to relive your darkest moments_

****

As Harry pulled out of Draco’s arse, he fell heavily onto his back and let out a groan, his muscles aching from their rough morning fuck.

He turned to glance over at Draco, admiring the way that he could make bedhead look effortlessly sexy, the way his cock always looked beautiful even when it was softened and flushed, come coating the head. Harry was fascinated by the way that Draco never looked sweaty, no matter how hard they fucked, instead his skin always appeared to be glowing. 

While Harry let his eyes explore every flawlessly flawed inch of Draco’s skin, Draco stretched and rolled over onto his stomach, his back arching in a way that made Harry’s cock twitch in a half-hearted attempt to fill out again.

Draco let out a sleepy little sound, his lips smacking together.

“What do you regret from the War?” Harry asked, the question coming out of him without preamble. 

Draco looked over at Harry as though he had just told Draco he planned to quit his teaching position at Hogwarts and join the Ballet. “You need to work on your pillow talk, Potter.”

“Yes yes, we’ve been over this. But, I really do want to know. What do you regret?”

A beat passed and Harry watched as tension seemed to build up in Draco’s spine, the tightness moving gradually up each vertebrae until Harry could see the tension in the clench of his jaw. “A lot of things. Most things.”

Harry remained silent, giving Draco time to open up. 

Draco sighed and pushed himself up onto his elbows, fiddling with the hem of a pillowcase as he spoke. “I regret hurting people. Pain and fear were a constant in my life for years, I - I think I became numb to it for while.”

“When you were away searching for Horcruxes, the Carrows were forcing me to hurt students,” Draco swallowed audibly, “They would make me walk around the castle and ask me to perform the Unforgivable Curses… I taught myself wordless spells that year. Stayed up for hours practicing until I was able to cast stunning spells and painless hexes without speaking.” 

Outside the window a bird was chirping cheerily and a couple of Muggle cars whizzed mindlessly by, but it all seemed a thousand miles away, the rest of the world seemingly insignificant compared to the gravity of Draco’s confessions.

“When they asked me to discipline a student, I’d cast something silently, picking a spell that was as harmless as possible, usually _Stupefy,_ and then I’d move on quickly before the Carrows could realize what I had really done.”

Harry could hear a small tremor in Draco’s voice, a tiny imbalance that only Harry would have noticed. It made Harry’s heart clench in his chest. He wanted nothing more than to reach out and pull Draco toward him, to tell him that none of it was his fault, but Harry knew that Draco needed this. He needed to have time to work through it on his own.

“Fuck…I hurt so many people. Little first years who didn’t know any better, students who saw Hogwarts as the safest place in the world. I may not have used _Crucio_ on anyone, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t cause people pain.”

****

_And I've been a fool and I've been blind_  
_I can never leave the past behind_  
_I can see no way_

****

“I regret how many people died for me. So many fucking people who wouldn’t have died if I didn’t exist,” Harry couldn’t keep the anger out of his voice, his heart beating an uncomfortably loud rhythm in his chest, the sound echoing in his ears as he spoke.

Harry took off his glasses for a moment, wiping a hand over his face as he felt tears gathering in the corner of his eyes, “Above all else… above everyone else, I regret that I couldn’t save Sirius.”

“I replayed his death hundreds of time in my mind, trying to figure out what I could have done, wondering if I had been quicker, if I’d killed - ” Harry paused, feeling tears running silently down his cheeks, the wetness pooling at the curve of his jaw. “Maybe if I’d killed Bellatrix I could have saved Sirius… Could have stopped Voldemort sooner.”

A rustle of sheets drew Harry’s attention and he turned to look at Draco. 

Draco’s grey eyes held a sadness that Harry hadn’t seen in years, “You couldn’t have stopped him. Killing her it - it wouldn’t have made a difference. He was too strong. He trusted Bellatrix, yes, but she was just one of many followers.”

Harry let Draco’s words sink in, fresh tears building in his eyes.

“I just miss Sirius so damn much.”

****

“Bellatrix used to ask me to kill people,” Draco began, his voice hardened. “When I refused, she’d kill them right in front of me. Wherever we were inside Malfoy Manor.”

Harry watched as Draco closed his eyes, his fists clenching in the sheets. “One day a few months before the Battle, I went home to visit my parents… Mother had been dealing with panic attacks and father was too focused on Voldemort to notice.”

Draco shifted where he lay, his voice getting quieter with every word, “I went up to my room to put away my trunk and - I - I found three people dead on the floor next to my dresser”

Harry sucked in a breath.

“I ran into the loo and wretched for hours, couldn’t stop sobbing.”

Harry moved over, until he was pressed right up against Draco. The instant their skin touched, Draco curled into him, pressing his face into Harry’s chest as he shook.

****

_And it's hard to dance with a devil on your back_  
_So shake him off_

****

Harry ran a hand soothingly over the back of Draco’s neck, keeping him steady and letting Draco know that he was safe now, “I regret all the time that we spent hating each other.”

Draco’s voice was small as he replied. Harry could feel Draco’s lips move against his sternum with each word, “I don’t know that we ever really hated each other.”

“‘Suppose that’s true,” Harry said. “For so long Voldemort was just this vision, this ghost that was ever-present and yet never truly there. I couldn’t see him or touch him… but I saw you and everything that your family represented. I poured all my hatred onto you.”

“I was jealous of you,” Draco admitted, his fingers tracing circles idly on Harry’s skin. 

“Why? I was a bloody mess all the time, always carrying out these half-cocked plans to save the day even though they rarely ever worked the way they were supposed to…God, it’s a miracle I survived my first few years at Hogwarts.”

“You didn’t have a family, and I was so fucking jealous of that. It sounds - Fuck, I sound like an arse, but I was jealous of the fact that you could make your own choices. You could just… _fight back._ I had parents to answer to. I always had people who expected things of me, expected me to carry out Voldemort's plan simply because they asked me to. I was fucking terrified.”

Harry squeezed gently over the back of Draco’s neck, acknowledging his words.

“You know what else I regret?” Draco asked, his voice a bit fuller than it had been a moment before, “I regret not shagging you back at Hogwarts. I mean, it probably would have helped everything.”

A laugh burst from Harry before he could help it, “Not that I don’t wish the same, but you really think a shag would have helped with the War?”

Draco shrugged against Harry, “A shag always helps. Plus, if you’d had my cock in your mouth back then, we could have avoided the whole ‘Weaselette’ situation,” he added, a smirk evident in his voice.

“So you’re saying that if I’d sucked your cock back at Hogwarts, I would have become a flaming gay and never dated Ginny?”

“Exactly. And you probably would have turned the castle into a damn pride parade… rainbows flags replacing the house banners, floating dildos replacing the candles -”

Harry reached down to smack Draco’s arse, grinning when Draco let out a yelp. “Piss off!”

“- And Dumbledore’s Army would have turned into a pansy club, your little lessons focused on how to properly deepthroat a cock or -”

“Shut your mouth, you brat,” Harry said, though he couldn’t help but laugh, rolling his eyes as Draco sat up and began pretending to suck a cock, letting out exaggerated moans and pressing his tongue lewdly into his cheek.

Draco look over at Harry with a smirk on his lips and a challenge in his eyes, “I think you know a few more creative ways to shut me up… _Potter_.”

Harry spent the next few hours finding every delicious way to shut Draco up.

****

_'Cause I am done with my graceless heart_  
_So tonight I'm gonna cut it out and then restart_  


  
_'Cause I like to keep my issues strong_  
_It's always darkest before the dawn_

****

**Author's Note:**

> Title and lyrics from ‘Shake it Out’ by Florence and the Machine.


End file.
